Living Near the North Korean Border

I currently live in Dongducheon, where I teach English at the local High School. It’s a sweet job, the staff and kids are great, my apartment is lovely – 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms and a balcony – and I really like being here.

And it’s about 12 miles from North Korea!

Add to that that there are military bases all around the area and you would think that I lived in a war zone, if you ever watch the Western news shows.

A friend asked me the other day how close I am to ‘things’ if it all kicked off, and I told him, truthfully, “just about ground zero I reckon”.

The thing is, I can tell you first hand that life goes on completely as normal here. The kids have just done their exams, the teachers carry on as normal, and whilst it’s obviously a topic for discussion at the dinner table, we are not putting sandbags at the doors and windows. Everything is normal.

One bonus is that all the soldiers who frequent the local bars are now on base in a state of readiness, which means I can get served quicker! Hurrah for small mercies!

My take on proceedings is that it will all blow over. North Korea is installing a new leader, and perhaps he wants to make a bit of a show, or perhaps even the exiting leader wants to. Also, I can’t quite fully understand why the South Koreans and the Americans need to do their military exercises so close to NK. It only provokes them.

I love South Korea, its people are friendly and, I hesitate to say this as it could be misconstrued, but they are kind of ‘innocent’. They go about their lives in their own little ways, they are not an angry race, they are generally polite, very helpful, often surprisingly kind. It would be a tragedy if such a peaceful and friendly nation, and one that has worked so hard to build itself up after decades of wars and occupations (by the Japanese) was to be ravaged by another war. You see, whilst ‘Korea’, it’s culture and language is very old, South Korea is new. It’s only been a country for fifty years or so, and the first thirty odd of those were under military rule. So really, it’s younger than some of the people reading this as a ‘proper’ democratic country.

I would feel terrible if these lovely people lost all they had worked so hard for. You can see how proud they are of what they’ve got, and what they’ve achieved in such a short space of time. The children here, especially the teeny-tots, are an absolute delight too – so cute and polite. It doesn’t bear thinking about that anything bad should happen to them.

South Koreans deserve peace and prosperity. I hope they get it. I think they will. I’m gonna (somewhat cheesily perhaps!) leave the last word to John Lennon :)